The first release candidate version of the latest incarnation of WordPress (and the last major upgrade before the long-awaited version 3.0) is now available for testing.

As always, plugin compatibility remains a major concern as the world prepares to upgrade and plugin testing has gotten even easier with the new plugin compatibility voting system. This new method of reporting allows testers to cast a vote on a given’s plugin page indicating whether or not it works with version 2.9.

From the official WordPress blog:

If you’re a user of plugins, there’s a groovy new compatibility feature on the plugin directory where you can vote on whether a plugin is compatible with a version or not and it’ll get registered in the new plugin compatibility checker. This is as a replacement to the old wiki-based lists we’d do before. To see it in action check out this Akismet plugin page, as you can see 14 people have already registered that it’s compatible with 2.9.

Click here to download WordPress 2.9 Release Candidate 1.